


Emotions Long Abandoned

by OfStrangeShadows



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Exploration of Emotions, F/M, Love, Mentions of Tamlen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 17:53:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/751335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfStrangeShadows/pseuds/OfStrangeShadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He never considered himself a jealous man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Emotions Long Abandoned

He never considered himself a jealous man. Sure, he had felt the occasional stab of envy as everyone does at least once in their life, but that was when he was a child; before he understood that life was not fair and when he would stare in jealously at the children of the rich that would sometimes pass him by. They would always be holding something – a candy or expensive toy of some sort – and the envy would stab him deep in the chest. But once he grew, he abandoned that. Jealousy was of no use to him as a Crow. In reality, it would get him killed and he knew it. So when this feeling stabbed him once more, he was more shocked than anything.

And of all the times it would come back, it had to be now? Now, when he is in her tent, as she tells him stories of her life on the move? Of her life with that elf, Tamlen? It’s hardly fair, he knows, that he be jealous. It’s just…why would she say that she would have married the elf while in the arms of another? Perhaps it’s something she has wanted to confess to someone, someone who may never understand the feeling of want toward another – true want, not the sexual need he felt towards some of his victims. He can understand that. He would be his first choice normally in a circumstance such as that, but not anymore. With her in his arms, he understands the want of someone else. The _true_ want. He wants her to stay forever. He wants her to abandon everything else and run with him; forget about Tamlen and Alistair and the Grey Wardens.

But he can’t ask her to do that for him. He doesn’t think she’d accept if he did. She is all sunrise and good things while he is anything but. She’ll bring redemption and a new life, while he’ll bring nothing. She doesn’t need him, no matter what she says while in the throes of passion. She’ll never need him like he needs her and she’ll never understand how exactly he needs her. He hardly understands it himself. What happened to him? What happened to the man who could sleep with someone one night and then slaughter them the next? He’s grown soft, he thinks, as she continues her stories with wide eyes. Tamlen is in every one of her stories, and he begins to think that the two probably would’ve made a good match if the boy was still alive.

And he feels guilty, but he’s glad Tamlen is lost to them now. He’s also a bit nervous, however. If Tamlen shows up in some miraculous way, will she leave him? Will she abandon him? Laugh off the nights they spent together as loneliness and wrap herself around Tamlen in front of him? Would she? He has to push away his jealousy and possessiveness to think straight, and when he does, he realizes that she would never. She is not the type of woman. She would probably dismiss herself from Tamlen’s company for a moment and come to him, whisper in a hushed tone of how their relationship could not work. He would like to think that he’d refuse and rush out to that other elf and kill him where he stands, but he knows within his heart that he couldn’t no matter how badly he wanted to. He would most likely stare at her and then wish her luck in the most convincing tone he could muster, with some joke of his woven into the congratulations. And that makes him angry. It makes him so angry. That is not who he is. He is Zevran Arainai, a former Crow and assassin. These emotions should not ever come to him. He should not know what they feel like; but he does.

And as much as he’d like to pretend that these new emotions don’t bother him, he can’t brush off the fear that chills his blood at the thought that this woman, lying in his arms, could give him these emotions. That a woman, an almost victim, could change him in such a drastic way. Had he always been so easy to change? Had it always been so easy? He would suppose not, as any woman could’ve come along to change him. Is it really just her? This fantastic and beautiful woman that is as fierce in bed as she is in battle? With her eyelids drooping and words slurring as she lies in his arms, it comes to him that it really was just _her_ that changed him.

He gets comfortable next to her and decides one last thing before sleep overcomes him. No matter what happens, if she is torn from him or decides to leave for another, he will always love her to the best of his ability and no one else. No matter his fear of the word, he could never love someone who did not change him and make him into the person he now is. No one else deserves his jealously like she does; as no one else deserves his love like she does.

**Author's Note:**

> Bleh.  
> This is so bad.  
> I hate the title.  
> I'm sorry.  
> I'll just crawl in a hole now. Follow me on [tumblr](http://nenai-lavellan.tumblr.com/) if you liked it! :)


End file.
